


Success Isn't Only Measured in Dollars

by TheShadowPanther



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, blink and you miss it Peggy/Steve, smol!Steve to the rescue, tiny!Cap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-14
Updated: 2017-06-14
Packaged: 2018-11-14 03:15:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11199324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheShadowPanther/pseuds/TheShadowPanther
Summary: Private Rogers falls out of the Rebirth chamber… different.Not obviously, not visible at first. He’s still scrawny, still short and skinny. But when he lifts his head, opens his blue eyes….





	Success Isn't Only Measured in Dollars

**Author's Note:**

> Not Brit-picked. Or beta'd.

Private Rogers falls out of the Rebirth chamber… different. 

Not obviously, not visible at first. He’s still scrawny, still short and skinny. But when he lifts his head, opens his blue eyes…. 

Peggy sees it. The way he already shines, brighter than the sickly person who went in. 

Then a gunshot goes off. Erskine falls, blood blossoming in his shirt. Rogers takes off, faster than humanly conceivable. 

-

Super strength. Super speed. High-speed regenerative capabilities. High metabolism rate. Super hearing. 

The list goes on and on: Steve’s new abilities thanks to the successful implantation and activation of the serum. 

But look away from the chart at the man himself, and you’d think they were talking about another person entirely. 

Steve Rogers doesn’t look any different than when he went in. Well, that’s not entirely true. He’s got some meat on him now – he doesn’t look like a stiff wind would kill him, at least. He still sits like he’s determined to fold himself in half, still is short, shorter than Peggy in her stockings, and he is not what anybody would think of when “super soldier” comes up. 

Yet. 

They’ve got him running around the track, completing loops, and this is his fifteenth. In an hour. With no reported shortness of breath. 

Previously, he would be gasping after three loops, either his asthma or “bum ticker,” as he calls it, (charming expression, really) leaving him out for the count. He picks things up and has to keep asking what color it is, not because he can’t see it, but because he can, and he doesn’t know what names go with which shade. She’s mentioned the super hearing before, only he has to keep asking what he’s hearing, because he’s never heard it before – 

For goodness’ sake, the man hadn’t known what a tea kettle going off sounded like! 

It is all completely ridiculous. Except. Well, Steve walks taller, his scoliosis gone like it has never been. And there is something… focused about him that had been missing somehow, drawing all eyes to him and drawing people into him – 

Well, it’s fascinating, that’s all there is to it. 

However, this is not what Peggy likes the most. None of these changes would have mattered one whit to her except as a relief that dear Abraham hadn’t died before his work was complete. No, the best part, in her opinion, is that aside from a clear difficulty adjusting to his new grip strength, Steve Rogers is the same cheeky monkey who proves utterly impossible at talking to women – but a lot of the impotent rage is gone, now his body isn’t trying to destroy itself and him with it. The determination, however, is very much evident, and oh, the tactical thinking he’s displayed, the unorthodox methods from training – brilliant. 

All there. All present. All ready, and finally able, to serve. 

She thinks they finally have a hope of winning this war.

**Author's Note:**

> Because smol!Cap needs to be a thing. 
> 
> Also, let’s pretend that they didn’t immediately scrap Project Rebirth after Erskine’s death, but stayed for at least a little while testing Steve’s abilities or something. What happens after that is entirely up to you, reader dear. 
> 
> (Seriously though, imagine the jaws that would drop when Steve rescued the Howling Commandos. This tiny dude flinging around a giant bullseye shield and pulling Bucky off the table, all without breaking a sweat? Excuse me while I die of laughter over here. *cackling*)
> 
> Note to readers of _fixing things_ : I’m promise working on it. I’m just stuck on rewriting the next chapter (the whole thing T__T) and also dealing with an advanced biology class at the same time. This tiny thing I wrote for MCU I wrote in less than half an hour as stress relief, then decided, why not? and posted it.


End file.
